


Gilead

by aflyingcontradiction



Series: Soaring Hawk [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Action/Adventure, Disability, F/M, Family, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Apocalypse, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 05:42:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12382056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aflyingcontradiction/pseuds/aflyingcontradiction
Summary: It has been several years since Honey saved her daughter from Hunter's compound. Honey, Hawk and Sparrow are now back with the nomads, but Hawk's time in the compound has left its scars. And events are about to come to a head when the nomads make a stop in a settlement by the name of Gilead.Inspired by putthepromptsonpaper.tumblr.com “See? We aren’t in a rom-com. People in rom-coms don’t have their first kiss by the fire.” “Yeah. They do.” “Well normally the fire isn’t made of burning bodies.”





	Gilead

I looked around the field. The tents had been taken down, the wagons were packed, the goats had been rounded up and were now standing in a tight group behind the wagons, making so much noise that I could barely hear myself think. When Mercury came up to me, shouting something, I shrugged my shoulders. She came closer.

“What are we still waiting for? Everyone’s ready and it’s getting late! If we don’t leave soon, we’ll have to wait till tomorrow!”

“We’re still missing some kids,” I replied. 

“Huh?” Mercury looked at the goat herd.

“Mine, to be precise,” I sighed. “Well, and one of the goats’. Hawk and Sparrow are looking for it. I sent them out a few hours ago.”

“Oh.” Mercury shielded her eyes and squinted into the distance to where the rolling hills stopped her gaze across the field. “And they’re still not back? Should we send someone after them?”

“I’m not worried. Neither is Soul. Hawk knows how to take care of herself all on her … THERE THEY ARE!”

I had spotted the silhouette of Sparrow in the distance, racing - no, tumbling - down the hill. 

I expected his sister to follow at a distance - nobody could keep up with Sparrow, especially not Hawk - but he seemed to be alone.

He reached the wagons and with a shout of “Sorry-I’m-late” he collapsed at my feet in a gasping heap. His hair was soaking wet and dripping all over his clothes.

“Are you okay? Where’s your sister? What happened?” I asked.

Sparrow slowly got off the ground and gave me a confused look: “She’s not here yet?” He shrugged, wiped the dirt off his trousers and pouted. “So I hurried back for no reason at all!”

“You were supposed to stick with her!”

“Yeah, I know,” he said, sounding annoyed. “But I was bored and it was hot, so I went for a swim in the river and she didn’t want to wait for me, so I told her we’d meet up here.”

I groaned. “There’s a reason I keep telling you to stick with your sister! She’s supposed to watch out for you!”

“I can watch out for myself.”

“No, you can’t. Half the time you can’t even watch where you’re going!” I looked him up and down, letting my eyes rest on his skinned knees and his grazed chin.

“But mooooooooom, it’s safe here!”

“Don’t you ‘but mom’ me. Nowhere is completely safe and you’re damn well old enough to know better.”

“Honey, love?” Soul came striding toward us, frowning. “Are we ready yet? Aida is getting antsy. She wants to leave today.”

“Hawk’s still not back and it seems they hadn’t found the goat yet when our beloved son here decided he’d rather go for a swim and Hawk wandered off on her own.”

Soul frowned at Sparrow who looked away rather sheepishly and shuffled his feet.

“Ah, there she is.” Mercury pointed to one of the hills in the distance. Hawk was slowly walking down it, leaning on the walking stick Soul had carved for her. She had a tiny goat draped around her shoulders like a scarf.

It took her rather a long time to reach us and when she did, she barely even acknowledged Soul and me as she walked past us to return the kid on her shoulders to its mother.

“Hey! Wait a minute! Hawk!”

Hawk looked up with a quizzical expression. 

“Is everything okay with the kid?”

“Guess so.”

“Where did you find it anyway?”

Hawk shrugged. I knew from experience that no amount of needling her would get me a proper answer, so I changed the topic: “And how come you didn’t stay with your brother?”

“Ask him,” she replied with a certain stroppiness in her voice and stalked off in the direction of the goats.

“Sparrow?” Soul asked, still frowning at our son.

“What?” he said, trying to outstare his father. “What? It’s hot! I just wanted to go for a swim and she didn’t want to wait. I didn’t do anything wrong! I didn’t!” Soul raised his eyebrows in disbelief. Sparrow turned his head and muttered: “Okay, so … I may have swum off a bit when she tried to get me out of the water.” 

“You should know better, Sparrow. I’m really disappointed,” said Soul but I could see his mouth twisting slightly at the sides. 

I couldn’t blame him. I, too, was biting my lip to stop myself from laughing. Sparrow was, once again, being too damn cute for his parents’ good. When suppressing my smile got too hard, I turned my head away from Sparrow and watched Hawk gently set the kid on the grass. It immediately ran off to its mother, bleating all the way.

“You two are going to turn me gray before my time, Sparrow. Your sister never talks and you never listen.”

“Sorry, mom.”

“Sure you are,” I said. 

For a moment I wondered whether I should lay into him. He couldn’t afford to goof off like this. Sure, this place was about as safe as it got. There was nobody but us around for miles. Not yet. But how quickly would that change? And then where would he be, wandering off on his own like that? I was well aware that both of my kids could handle themselves in most situations. But then Sparrow knew that, too, so he had neither fear nor his sister’s common sense to keep him out of danger. Having him run around unsupervised was a recipe for trouble. But when he gave me that innocently crestfallen look of his I just couldn’t stay mad at him: “Oh, go on and make sure your stuff is packed. We need to leave.”

“Why are we leaving anyway? It’s not even getting cold yet and there’s grass…” he spread his arm and turned in a circle “everywhere!”

“If you go get your things now,” I said, “there might still be space for you in the wagon with El! Tams is over there, too!” 

I had barely finished talking when I watched him shoot off with a loud “YAAAAY!” 

As expected, the mere mention of his favourite storyteller and his best friend had done the job of getting him moving and out of my hair. I would not have fancied my chances against an overly curious seven-year-old and neither did I feel like telling him the true reason we were leaving weeks before we had planned: The night before, our scouts had returned and told us they had spotted a large and heavily armed gang camping just a few days away. Sure, maybe they were peaceful travelers, only armed for self-protection. But we didn’t want to chance it. And Sparrow would just get dumb ideas if I told him about it before I absolutely had to. 

“IS EVERYONE READY NOW?” I heard Aida shout over the bleating of the goats, the babble of four dozen people and the slight breeze that was now picking up. She had a way of making herself heard.

“YES!” I shouted back and climbed up on one of the wagons next to Soul who was holding the reins.

\-------------------------------------------------------

Moving three wagons, a bunch of horses, a goat herd and four dozen people with all their odds and ends across land was a slow process. We had barely gotten ahead and already dusk was approaching fast. 

I called out to Aida who was circling our wagons on her horse: “Should we make camp?”

Aida approached until she was riding right next to us. She looked at the darkening sky with a frown and sighed. “This isn’t a good place to stop, we’ll be right out in the open and that lot back there,” she pointed back the way we had come, “has cars and bikes.”

I sighed, too. “I know. But what can we do? It’s all out in the open for days.”

Aida nodded grimly, re-adjusted her bandana with one hand, then eventually said, reluctance thick in her voice: “Well, Gilead’s about half a day’s travel from here.”

“Pah. Gilead,” spat Soul. “You call that safe?”

Our people travelled past the settlement every few years, but we did not always stop there. Gilead had a habit of changing its leaders rather more frequently and more violently than necessary. Whether the current leader would welcome traders with open arms or order their people to rob us at gunpoint was pure guesswork. 

“Hardly,” replied Aida. “But it’s not out in the open and there’s more firepower to defend us if need be.” 

“Aida,” Soul started and I could tell from his voice that he was about to say something highly scathing. He still had a scar on the back of his right leg stemming from a visit to Gilead at a time when I had not been with the group.

“We don’t exactly have much of a choice,” Aida cut him off rather angrily. “But if you have a better idea…”

“Well, we’re not going to reach it tonight either way,” I pointed out. 

“Well, alright then. EVERYONE! CAMP FOR THE NIGHT! STAY ON GUARD!”

The wagons stopped almost at once. I immediately climbed into the back of the wagon to make some room for people to sleep there. Soul and I were going to stand guard.

“Hey, Mom!” Sparrow had bounced into the back of the wagon. “Why are we staying on guard?”

“Reasons. I’m busy, sweetheart.” 

“Is it true that we’re being followed by raiders? Autumn says we’re being followed by raiders.”

“We’re not being followed and we don’t know if they’re raiders.”

“But they might be! Cool.”

“It’s not…”

“Are you going to shoot them, Mom?”

“Nobody is getting shot, sweetie,” I said as I loaded several rifles. “This is just to be on the safe side. Now please do me a favour and make yourself useful or get out of my hair. I’m really busy.”

“There were raiders in El’s story, too. Well, not really raiders. They didn’t hurt anyone. They just wanted to steal some stuff. Gold. From a bank. And then the leader fell in love with this woman who was leading this other group who was also trying to rob the bank. Well, first they really hated each other and then the guy got injured and the woman took care of him and then they fell in love and then they robbed the bank together. Mom, what’s a bank?”

“A place where people before the Fall kept their gold.”

“Why?”

“So that it wouldn’t get stolen.”

“But…”

“Sparrow!”

“Yeah, yeah, ‘make yourself useful or get out of my hair’. Nobody wants to talk to me today,” he made a sulky face. “Not you, not Hawk.”

“Where’s your sister anyway?”

“Dunno.”

“I thought she was in El’s wagon with you?”

“Nope. She didn’t want to join me. I think she’s still mad at me.” 

“You should apologise for running off.”

“I did! But she’s not talking to me. She never talks to anyone. She only sulks.”

I smiled. Sparrow was not wrong. 

Of course, Hawk had always been incredibly quiet. Growing up in virtual slavery would do that to a girl. But the past few months, she had become increasingly morose and snappy. It was worrying.

“Should I go look for her?” said Soul, who was helping me clear space in the wagon.

“I’ll go look for her,” I said and grabbed the weapons. “I’ve got to hand these out anyway.” 

I hopped out of the wagon and walked to the back of the group, handing out rifles and shotguns to the people who’d be of some use in a fight.

Like Sparrow had said, she wasn’t in El’s wagon. But she wasn’t in Mercury’s wagon either.

Mercury told me she hadn’t seen her and added, with a wry smile: “You know, they used to have tracking chips you could put in animals, but maybe a cow bell would do.”

I finally found her sitting among the goats, her cane beside her, nursing her shoulder, which, judging from her expression, was aching like a motherfucker.

“Did you walk the whole way?”

“Hm,” answered Hawk.

“You know there was room in all three of the wagons, right?”

“I can walk just fine,” she growled.

“Yeah, but you don’t have to.”

When I had first rescued her from that compound, it had taken me months to convince her that someone with an impairment like hers could even survive out in the open. I had tried to convince her she was useful to the group, too. She was a hard worker, a fast learner, just the type of person we needed. But I was pretty sure she didn’t believe it to this day. She certainly had a habit of overcompensating to prove that she could keep up as well as anyone else, even though nobody had ever asked her to.

“You missed out on El’s latest story,” I said as I sat down next to her.

“Pity,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

I raised my eyebrow. “I thought you liked El’s stories.”

“Some of them.”

“If you’re still mad at Sparrow…”

“I’m not.”

I gave her a look that I hoped was piercing.

“I’m really not,” she said, then sighed: “Sparrow’s really into El’s stupid rom-coms right now,” she spat out the word like a curse, “so those are all he ever tells right now ‘cause Sparrow’s his fucking favourite, isn’t he? I didn’t miss anything, okay?”

“What’s so stupid about love stories?”

“They’re just stupid, nobody acts like that.” She stretched her arm out to grab the last remaining shotgun from my arms.

“And what do you think you’re doing?”

“Aida said to stay on guard. I’m staying on guard,” she said, the unspoken ‘Duh’ clear in her tone.

“There’s enough people to guard the camp. You need to rest, you’ve been walking all day.”

“I’m perfectly capable of staying up and guarding the camp, Mom.”

She looked about ready to keel over. I would not have trusted anyone to shoot straight in her state.

“Hawk. Get your stubborn ass to the wagon and sleep or I will knock you out and drag you there myself.”

Hawk grabbed her walking stick and pulled herself up from the ground with the aid of the unsuspecting goat next to her, which protested loudly. She limped away grumbling darkly under her breath but I distinctly heard the words ‘Fuck you’ and ‘Bullshit’.

\-------------------------------------------------------

I stayed with the goats for a few hours, but thankfully, everything remained quiet. 

Eventually, Soul came and sat down close beside me. He put his arm around me, but he kept fidgeting and I could tell his thoughts were not exactly in the moment. Even when he kissed me, he didn’t seem quite there with me. I pulled away.

“You’re worried,” I said. It wasn’t a question. I knew what I knew.

“Yes, I’m worried,” he confirmed.

“About Gilead?”

“About Gilead. About whoever that lot back there is. About Hawk.” He sighed deeply. 

“Especially about Hawk, I gather. She's not still refusing to sleep, is she?”

“She refused to get in the wagon with us. She’s sleeping under it now. Or at least I hope she’s sleeping, she looked like she could use it.”

I groaned. 

“Maybe it’s just her age,” said Soul, but he sounded doubtful. “Were you like that at her age?”

“At her age I was too busy trying not to starve to be grumpy, love.”

Soul put his arm around me and squeezed me tight: “I’m sorry, I keep forgetting what a shit life you’ve had.”

“Yeah, you spoiled brat! Not everyone gets to grow up surrounded by the luxury that is smelly goats,” I joked and kissed him on the nose. 

He gave me a goofy smile but it faded as quickly as it had come: “I think her time with that bastard…”

“Hunter?”

“Yeah. I think that really fucked her up. I thought she was getting better, but…”

“What did you expect?” I interrupted him. “She had years of her life stolen by that fucker, you don’t just recover from that, it’s not a broken bone or a flu!”

“I know,” he said, “I know” and fell silent.

We sat there for a while, keeping each other warm, staring out into the darkness, our guns next to us just in case. Everything was quiet except for the goats snoring softly around us and the whispered conversations of the others standing guard.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you,” I said, eventually.

“It’s alright. I know Hawk is a sore spot for you.”

“I … fuck it, I should have found her earlier. If I had just found her earlier…”

Soul pulled me towards him and squeezed me tight. He smelled like earth and sweat and, yes, smelly goats, too. I buried my nose deeper in his chest.

“Stop beating yourself up over it. It’s not your fault. You saved her. She might be dead if you hadn’t,” he whispered as he gently stroked my hair.

\-------------------------------------------------------

Luckily the night passed without incident. The next morning, Aida woke everyone up with a yell of “SUN’S UP! EVERYONE!”. By the time we were all up and ready to go, it was only just light enough to travel. Hawk had, indeed, spent the entire night underneath the wagon and looked like she had not slept a wink. 

I decided to give her an ultimatum: “You either travel in our wagon, or in El’s or Mercury’s. But you are not walking again.”

“I can keep up with everyone else just fine,” she said grumpily. “If you think I’m so useless…”

“You know perfectly well that you’re not useless and nobody thinks you are. You’re not helping anyone by making yourself ill.”

“But…”

“Hawk, you’re clever enough to know you’re being really fucking dumb right now. When we reach Gilead, we’ll need everyone alert and capable. So you will sit in a fucking wagon and rest until then. Got it?”

She grumbled as she got into our wagon, but by the time we were setting off, she was fast asleep. Sparrow sat down next to her and, half-leaning against his big sister’s chest, started looking out at the passing landscape.

“I thought you’d be with El?”

The only answer I got was a shrug from Sparrow and a knowing smile from Soul.

\-------------------------------------------------------

We saw nothing but grassy hills and blue skies until, around noon, the walls of Gilead appeared in the distance. I had seen buildings much higher than that while digging through the rubble of abandoned pre-Fall cities, but after weeks of nothing but pure, untouched nature, the walls were rather intimidating.

Hawk snapped awake when Sparrow shouted: “Woah! Look at that!” 

She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and stared for a moment. “That wall is higher than the one at the compound,” she eventually said in a low voice. “We’re really going in there?” I could tell she was worried we might not make it out again.

“That’s the idea,” said Soul. “Aida’s idea anyway. We might be safer trying our luck against the armed lot.”

Soul and Hawk weren’t the only unhappy ones. In fact, Mercury even refused to move her wagon until Aida had specifically reassured her that we would send some people ahead to scout out the situation and that not a single man, woman or child would enter Gilead until we were sure we would be welcomed there. 

Finding volunteers was an even harder sell. Of all of us, Sparrow seemed the only one keen on going.

“It’ll be cool!” he said, waving his arms. “Please, can I go.”

“Oh yeah, you’ll make a great ambassador,” Soul said and ruffled Sparrow’s hair.

“What’s an ambassador?”

While Soul did his best to explain, Aida approached me. I knew what she was going to say before she said it and cut her off before she had even finished clearing her throat: “You need my help.”

“Well, yes, you’re the best at this kind of stuff.”

“What kind of stuff? Making sure potentially blood-thirsty strangers don’t murder us all?”

“Diplomacy!”

“Same thing.” I sighed.

My reputation as The Diplomatic One, while not entirely unfounded, was still vastly exaggerated. Having travelled alone for most of my life, I had negotiated, begged and swindled a living out of more strangers than most of my people. But that did not make me anything close to the diplomatic genius that Aida thought I was. In fact, Aida, as beloved as she was among our people, had a penchant for saying dumb shit while talking to people she did not know. Using her as a baseline was setting the bar rather low. Regardless of my alleged diplomatic expertise, going into Gilead without even the slightest clue of what lay beyond its walls was not a good idea. I told Aida so.

“It’s either that or keep travelling with no shelter and hope that that lot back there doesn’t care about us. They outnumber and outgun us and can outrun us, too, if that’s what they want. If it turns out they really are raiders, that’s it for us and this world.”

“Rock and a hard place,” I replied. I looked at Hawk, who was still staring at the wall with a mixture of awe and distrust, but was now also looking back the way we had come every few seconds, making it seem like she had developed a nervous twitch. She had been through enough fighting for several lifetimes. 

Quite unlike her brother, who was now practically bouncing. It was all just one big adventure to him. He trusted us to keep him safe so much that the idea of adventures ending in injury or death never even seemed to cross his mind. If we got into a fight with that gang, I knew he would not run, no matter what Soul or I or anyone else told him. I knew he’d stay and try to “help”. 

I sighed. “Well, I’ll do my best.”

\-------------------------------------------------------

Aida did not manage to cajole anyone else into accompanying us, though not for lack of trying. Eventually the two of us got on our horses and rode up to the Gilead city walls.

I had been in Gilead twice in my life. The first time had been with my people. I was only just learning how to move my limbs again after surviving the stone plague. At the time I could only walk for a few minutes with the help of two crutches and Soul at my back to catch me whenever I lost my balance. 

Gilead had seemed like heaven back then. Its leader was an old woman, called Grandmother by everyone. She was only too happy to give us temporary sanctuary and trade with us. She was particularly fond of the goat cheese we offered her and paid handsomely for it. 

In Gilead, we got to eat fruit that I had never even seen before in my life. Apparently the inhabitants had built some highly successful greenhouses. 

Grandmother took a liking to me almost immediately. We got to talking. It seemed, she too had lost a child - not to slavers, but to the same disease I had successfully overcome and the aftermath of which I was now fighting. We spent evenings sitting together, talking about our lives. She, like the oldest members of our own group, had been born before the Fall. Her tales of how life was before, how she had adjusted to life after and how she had come to be the leader of Gilead fascinated me and to my great surprise, she was equally fascinated by stories from my own life, though I felt I had barely even lived by that point. 

It took me a while to see past my awe and realise that Grandmother maintained order in her paradise through a combination of overwhelming generosity to those who obeyed her and harsh punishments for those who did not. One public execution later and even the toughest of my people were freaked out. We said our extremely polite good-byes and got the fuck out of there while we still could.

The second time I came to Gilead, I was alone. I had left Soul and the people I had come to see as my family to look for my daughter. I had had some dumb luck on my journey and by the time I reached Gilead’s gates, I was cold, hungry and barely able to stand. Then like today I was in awe of the giant gates and wondered where the original founders of Gilead had salvaged the giant metal grid they used to keep out unwelcome guests. The gate was opened for me when I mentioned Grandmother to the guards. 

As it turned out, I was extremely lucky. Grandmother had died a while back, kicking off a fierce power struggle within Gilead. Now her actual grandson had inherited her leadership - though only after many, many others before him. He took me in, though rather reluctantly, to honour Grandmother’s memory. Had I arrived just a few weeks earlier during his predecessor’s short-lived reign, I might have been executed on the spot the moment I uttered the word ‘Grandmother’. 

As it was, I was mostly left to my own devices. The new leader of Gilead seemed to find it unnecessary to give me any special protection beyond letting me through the gates, but that was all the better for me. Gilead must have had several hundreds of inhabitants at the time and with how chaotic everything still was, it was easy to blend in. Nevertheless, I left in a hurry when Grandmother’s grandson got his throat slit by a rival only three days after I had arrived. Since then, I had not been back and had no inkling of the current political climate in Gilead, but from what Soul had told me about his latest visit, it seemed not to have stabilised.

\-------------------------------------------------------

Aida and I approached the well-guarded gates on our horses, waving large white cloths through the air. As we got closer, we noticed that the guards on the walls were aiming their guns at us. Aida gave me a nervous look. I nodded at her in an attempt to be encouraging.  
We reached the gate and dismounted from our horses, when we saw two of the guards approach the huge grid from the inside, their guns pointed out at us.

“Shit,” said Aida. “We’re so fucked. You were right. We shouldn’t have come.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But they’ll let us talk. If they weren’t planning to, they would’ve fired already.”

“HALT!”

We stopped within shouting distance of the gate. 

“State your business!” shouted one of the men. His tone was the same I’d been greeted with when I had entered Gilead before, but the shiny pump-action shotgun was new. Neither Grandmother nor grandson had armed their welcoming committee quite this well. Still, it was not the first time I had a gun pointed at me. It wasn’t even the tenth time. 

I opted for partial honesty: “We are traders. We want to do business with you!”

“Traders, huh?” He looked us up and down. 

“We left the others behind to look after our goats,” I explained.

“Goats?” He sounded eager. I barely held in my grin. “You trading goat cheese?” 

“Yeah. You can have fresh milk, too. Cured meats. We also have some interesting treasures we found on our journey.”

I knew from the way this guy had lowered his gun ever so slightly that I’d had him at “cured meats”. Last I knew, Gilead’s citizens lived mostly off their greenhouses and some chickens and even during the glory days of Grandmother’s reign, there had been quite a few Gileadeans with a craving for meat that wasn’t poultry. The two guards had withdrawn slightly from the gate to discuss our case, though their buddies on the wall were still dutifully aiming their guns at us. 

When the two returned, they said: “We will let you enter first to speak to Faura. He’ll decide if the rest of your group can come.”

Aida looked at me. I shook my head. Had the men not been so obviously keen on our goods, I would have had to think much harder of what to say next, but I could tell they would do all they could to make this work, so there was no need for much trickery. 

“We will gladly speak to your leader,” I said, “but you must understand that we would rather meet on more neutral ground. If we have to enter your town without the rest of our people, they might wrongly suspect foul play and refuse business with you, you see?”

The two men whispered to each other for a moment, then one of them ran off, presumably to fetch Faura, while the other one told us in a gruff voice to wait.

\-------------------------------------------------------

So we waited. And waited. And waited. Aida kept casting nervous glances back to where we had left the rest of our people.

“What’s keeping him?” she wondered aloud. 

“Who is he anyway?” I asked. “Do you know?”

“Faura,” she muttered. “Doesn’t ring a bell. Don’t think he was a force last time we visited Gilead, but that was…” She thought for a moment. “That must have been four years ago at least. You hadn’t returned with Hawk yet. A lot can change in that time.”

“Especially in Gilead,” I said, smiling. “Well, we’ll see…”

And we did. Faura’s arrival was impossible to miss, as he arrived, not on foot or horseback, but carried by four servants in a palanquin, the sides of which were painted with an elaborate red and blue pattern. 

“Oh, you’ve gotta be shitting me,” whispered Aida.

Faura stepped out of the palanquin. His appearance confirmed my first impression. He was bare-chested, but it was barely noticeable because he was covered in so much jewellery. His braids, which were, impressively, even longer than Soul’s, had little golden rings dangling on the ends. He approached the gate with a confident stride. Here was a man who loved beautiful things. Here was also a man who thought very highly of himself and we had yet to determine whether that opinion was justified. 

I bowed slightly and Aida followed suit, as she said, in a tone that betrayed how hard she was trying not to laugh: “Greetings. You’re Faura?”

But, incredibly, he did not seem to notice. “Yes, I am. And you’re the goat herders I’ve been told about.” 

“Yeah, that’s us,” Aida said and fell silent again. 

“We would like to enter your beautiful town to trade with your people and maybe rest for some days behind the safety of these…”, I made my gaze last on the town walls for a moment longer than I would otherwise have, “impressive walls.” I waited for a moment to see if he would answer, then added: “We have never seen such a well-fortified city anywhere else.”

Not only was this a lie, but these city walls had probably been built well before Faura, who couldn’t be much older than me, had even stopped shitting his diapers. But he seemed like just the kind of man who would take credit for other people’s hard work. I had laid it on pretty thick, just to see if he would call me on my bullshit.

Unsurprisingly, he did not. Instead, a hungry little smile appeared on his face as he turned to me and said: “Of course, I would be only too glad to make the acquaintance of the people you lead. May I ask for your name?”

Jackpot! I knew that look. I knew that tone of voice, too. He was so obvious, he may as well have been drooling. 

I giggled girlishly and willed myself to blush: “I’m Honey. And I’m flattered. I’m no leader. Aida here,” I pointed at her, “leads us and she does it better than I ever could.” 

Faura shot me a doubtful look, but did not comment. Instead he said: “Bring your people close, I will have the gates opened.”

The words were barely out of his mouth when Aida had already put her fingers in her mouth and whistled loudly. We saw the herd in the distance stirring and in no time at all, everyone else had joined us at the gate, which was now being pulled up by an invisible winch system on the inside of the wall. 

As we entered the town, slowly following Faura in his ridiculous palanquin, I hopped back onto our wagon and sat down next to my love.

“Soul,” I said. “I need a favour.”

“What is it?” he asked. 

“You won’t like it,” I said. “But Faura needs to think I’m available, so I need you to keep your distance while he’s around.”

Soul raised his eyebrow. “So, just in case I ever wondered whether you have a type, there’s my answer.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “He’s into me, I’m trying to spin that to our advantage,” I said.

“And I’d be in your way. Say no more.” Other men would have been resentful. He merely sounded resigned. 

“I knew you’d understand.”

“I understand. But I don’t like it.” Soul sighed. “I sure as hell hope Aida doesn’t intend to stick around for too long or else I might lose my mind.”

“Just till we’re sure the fuckers back there will leave us alone.” I looked at the eerily unruined houses on the sides of the street we were now travelling down. “I’ll miss touching you, too.”

“Aw! You’re like a rom-com couple!” said a squeaky voice from the back of the wagon. It seemed Sparrow had hopped on just in time to catch the tail end of our conversation. “Star-crossed lovers! That’s so cool. Mom, why is it called star-crossed lovers anyway? Mom!”

“Do we pretend Sparrow and Hawk aren’t yours either?” whispered Soul.

“I’m not trying to make him believe I’ve never seen a cock up close,” I whispered in reply. “He seems a bit self-absorbed but he’d have to be a complete idiot to buy that.” 

“So no?”

“So no.”

“Mom! What do stars have to do with anything? Mom! MOMMY!”

“Would be impossible anyway.”

“MOOOOOOOM!”

“I heard you the first time, sweetheart. I have no idea. Ask El. He probably knows.”

“I already have. He doesn’t know either. And Tams’ dad doesn’t know either. Why does nobody ever know anything?”

“We’re all useless, I know,” I sighed.

\-------------------------------------------------------

By the time we had arrived in the town square where we were to camp, I had explained the situation to Hawk as well. She seemed to understand - or at least that is what I took from her unconcerned “Hum”. 

Unfortunately that lack of concern only lasted until Faura approached us as we were setting up camp in the town square. Soul had withdrawn with Sparrow to give me some space, but Hawk was still standing next to me, as he came up to us and said: “Why don’t we discuss business over dinner? I would be honoured to welcome such a beautiful lady… such beautiful ladies at my table. I will have my cook prepare a meal better than anything else you have ever eaten.”

Aida snorted. Had the circumstances been different, she might have told the jackass to stuff his insincere compliments and dumbass promises where the sun don’t shine. Hell. I might have. I had not met someone quite this ridiculous in a long time. But Hawk recoiled visibly, drawing Faura’s attention with her involuntary movement. He smiled at her: “And you must be Honey’s daughter?”

“She is. How could you tell?” I asked.

“She has her mother’s beauty.” My beautiful daughter looked like a beaten dog, ready to bite anyone whose hand got too close to her. Faura didn’t notice. “She is invited, too, of course.”

Hawk’s eyes were darting back and forth between me, Faura and the town wall peeking out between the houses.

The moment Faura turned away to get back into his palanquin - did that asshole move anywhere on his own two feet? - I whispered to Hawk: “It’s okay.”

She was still stiff as stone, barely even breathing.

“No, really. It’s okay. He won’t touch you. I promise. He’s just trying to get on my good side. He’s not interested in you.”

“Bullshit.”

“No, I’m absolutely sure.”

She clearly didn’t believe me.

“Listen! If he doesn’t keep his distance, you’ve got my permission to do whatever you need to do to make him. Including punching and stabbing. Okay?” I was as certain as I could be that it would not come to that. Faura was an arrogant dick, but a harmless one, surely.

Hawk, however, nodded slowly, her face grim.

“And you don’t have to go eat dinner with him either.”

“I’m not a coward,” she whispered.

“Nobody said you were.”

“I’m coming.”

“You know you don’t have to prove anything to me.”

“I’m coming.”

\-------------------------------------------------------

Faura had moved into the house that had once been Grandmother’s, but I barely even recognised it. Where in Grandmother’s day, the spartan decor had made the two-storey building seem almost reasonably sized, Faura had covered the entire place with gaudy decorations. There wasn’t a single corner that wasn’t covered in carpets, gold and glittering jewels, though I suspected most of them were fake. 

“My eyes hurt,” moaned Aida.

“I’ll try to sell him that weird angel statuette Soul found. He’ll love it,” I whispered.

Even the table was set with shiny silverware. I assumed he had been trading with - or maybe fleecing - passing travellers since he had first taken over this town. How else would you amass this heap of utterly impractical riches in a few short years.

When we sat down at the oversized table, Faura directed me to the chair right next to him.  
Hawk gave me a worried look as she sat down as far away from him as she could get away with. I could see she was fiddling with the knife I knew she carried in her pocket. I mouthed “It’s okay” when Faura wasn’t looking.

The table conversation was very uncomfortable, but Faura predictably didn’t notice. He was too busy making eyes at me and puffing out his chest while telling us all about how amazing he was as a leader. He barely even paid attention when Aida tried to steer the conversation to business except to agree to every single thing she suggested. Within minutes he had promised us protection for as long as we wanted as well as several large crates of preserves in exchange for far too little goat milk and cheese. 

Everything was going about as well as it could have until Aida, clearly sick of being ignored, tried to find a way into Faura’s monologue. Just as he was telling us about how it was his leadership that had truly turned Gilead into a glorious city, Aida remarked, sarcasm dripping from her voice: “Yes, it really looks completely different from when we were here last.”

My breath caught in my throat. I could have kicked her. I’d thought it was obvious that we wouldn’t mention having been here before until we knew more about Faura and his relationships with the last leaders of Gilead.

“Oh, you’ve been here before?” Faura said, frowning.

“Ah, yes, but it was years ago. Hawk here hadn’t even been born yet. Gilead was different then,” I lied.

“So you never met Dith?”

I glanced sideways at Aida and saw a look of recognition cross her face.

“Never heard of them.”

“Good for you! He was a horrible leader! He would have ruined Gilead once and for all if I hadn’t stepped in.”

“So you killed him?” asked Aida, curiously.

“Well, yes, of course. I had to. Gilead needed … ah, there’s the food! Finally!”

The food was served by a weedy kid wearing rags so tattered that I felt like a lech even looking at him. He looked skinny enough that I could break him in two with my bare hands and his expression was barely concealing how hungry he was. And yet, he masterfully balanced our bowls of vegetable stew to the table and set them down in front of each of us. 

Hawk was last. And that’s when it happened. The boy ran around the table to set the bowl down in front of my daughter, but he must have missed her cane on the floor. With a scream and a clatter both the plate and the boy fell to the floor. Hawk let out a shout of “Oi! Watch it!” 

The vegetable stew was all over her shirt, all over the floor and all over the boy who was now trembling from head to toe as he slowly got up, stammering terrified apologies. Before the boy had even gotten to his feet, Faura roared and jumped up. In a split second he had grabbed the boy by his collar and was shaking him, screaming incoherently. I saw Hawk sit there frozen with a look of horror on her face. But only for the blink of an eye, then she jumped up, her hand shooting to her pocket.

I was on my feet and dragging Faura off the kid before she could do anything reckless.

“It’s okay,” I told him.

The boy was still stammering apologies and frantically trying to blink back tears.

“Useless clumsy fuck! He’ll be punished later.”

Faura glowered at the boy who let out a terrified squeak.

“It was an accident!” Aida shouted, outraged. 

Hawk had pulled part of her knife out of her pocket and was holding it with a grip tight enough to turn her knuckles white. I could practically see us beaten to a pulp and tossed out on our asses. 

“What is the use of ruining such a lovely evening?” I asked and ran my hand softly down Fauna’s back. I could practically feel the tension drain from him. 

Fucking hell, if I ended up having to sleep with this pompous motherfucker just to make up for this mess, I would find a way to twist his dick into shapes as yet unknown to mankind and then I would tell Aida exactly what I thought of her getting me into this situation. 

“Why don’t you send…” I gestured at the terrified boy, but it seemed a name was not forthcoming. “Why don’t you send him to clean my daughter’s clothes and help her prepare a meal for herself and we can continue where we left off.” I smiled the most charming smile I could manage while also wanting to strangle the person it was aimed at.

Faura gave me a confused look, then he slowly began to nod. He turned on the boy: “Do what she said. GO!”

Hawk looked only too happy to leave. She got to her feet and pulled the boy out with her. I trusted her to handle things the way I would want them handled.

“I’m sorry for this,” said Faura, as we sat back down to our now lukewarm stew.

“As you should be,” muttered Aida, glaring at him. 

This time I really did kick her under the table, but Faura had not heard her anyway: “The boy was payment from some people I took into Gilead. I am beginning to feel rather cheated. He is absolutely useless, but what can you do?” Faura shrugged.

“You could’ve let him sit down and have a bite before he collapsed,” snarled Aida.

“You let your slaves sit at the table with you?” said Faura. He seemed genuinely surprised.

“We don’t own slaves.” Aida’s voice was thick with venom.

“We don’t own tables, either, for that matter,” I tried to joke. Faura smiled politely.

The rest of the evening was awkward, to say the least. Despite several kicks under the table, Aida would not stop glowering so hard that even Faura started to feel uncomfortable. The flow of conversation turned into a drizzle and then dried up altogether. I was only too glad to get out of there. 

The moment we were out of earshot, I laid into Aida: “What do you think you’re playing at? Can you at least try to act friendly?”

“He’s slaver scum. Fuck friendly!”

“I’m not fucking enjoying this either, Aida! And from what I remember, sitting out the danger in Gilead was your idea, so if you could at least not actively sabotage my every attempt to make your idea work…”

Aida gave an exaggerated groan and quickened her step. 

“Okay then! Be childish!” I shouted after her.

\-------------------------------------------------------

When we arrived back at the town square, I soon saw that I was not the only one engaged in childish bickering. Hawk was shouting at Sparrow. Her face was bright red with anger. The two were surrounded by a bunch of town children. The skinny boy was standing slightly off to the side, his rags now cleaner but also significantly wetter than they had been before. He was looking extremely uncomfortable, but no longer quite as scared. I couldn't figure out what had happened, but most of Hawk’s monologue seemed to consist of the words “embarrassing” and “fuck off”.

“Well, well, well, do my weary ears deceive me or are you actually talking now?” I asked.

To my surprise, Hawk answered with more than just a ‘Hm’: “This little shit won’t leave Fitz and me alone! He keeps bothering us!”

I assumed that Fitz was the name of the skinny boy.

“I wasn’t bothering them at all. All I said is that they’re like a couple in one of El’s rom-coms and I asked them if they were going to fall in love and kiss!”

Hawk’s face went even redder, as she shouted: “SHUT UP! You’re making Fitz feel really fucking awkward, jackass.”

He truly looked awkward as all hell, but I suspected that Hawk’s outburst wasn’t helping matters.

“Sparrow, leave your sister alone,” I sighed. 

“But it’s true, though. It’s like in a rom-com. He spilled food on her and they helped clean each other up. They were even almost naked and everything. And next there’s a kiss.”

“Yeah? You can kiss my fucking ass.”

“But you were nearly naked with each other!”

“We were washing our clothes, you little creep, and you were spying on us, even though I told you Fitz wanted some privacy!”

“He was washing your back!”

“Some of us like to wash dirt off before we have to shed it like a snake. You should try it sometime.”

“Sparrow. Hawk. Stop bickering. Sparrow, go to your dad.”

“But Dad’s working.”

“Go help him.”

“But I don’t want to!”

“Do I look like I care? Go.”

Sparrow left, grumbling under his breath about how much I sucked and how I was always on Hawk’s side. Hawk, it seemed, disagreed. The moment Sparrow had left, she stomped toward me, grabbed me by the shoulder and hissed in my ear: “And you don’t give a shit at all, do you?”

“What?”

“You said Faura wasn’t dangerous. Fitz is covered in bruises head to fucking toe! He’s got fucking lash marks on his back. Not dangerous, my ass.”

“He’s not dangerous to us.”

“And that’s all you fucking care about?”

“What gave you that idea?”

“You’re just sweet-talking the bastard, so we can stay here and trade.”

“I sweet-talked Hunter, too!” I hissed back. 

That shut her up.

I looked at the poor kid awkwardly shuffling his feet next to Hawk and the others who were slowly dispersing now that the entertainment was over. I guessed from Fitz’s face that he was around Hawk’s age, but years of malnutrition must have stunted his growth. The top of his head only just reached Hawk’s cheek and that was saying something, given that Hawk herself hadn’t exactly grown up as healthy and strong as she should have. 

Until now I truly had focused only on keeping ourselves in Faura’s good graces and within the city walls, but I began to wonder now: This boy, this cowering, bruised child, clearly as scarred as my daughter had been when I had rescued her and twice as scared - could I help him while keeping my family safe, too?

Fitz must have noticed I was staring at him. “I … I’m really sorry about the stew … and your … your daughter’s clothes,” he stammered.

“I told you we don’t care,” said Hawk. “You even managed to get the fucking stains out, anyway. So you can stop shaking.”

“I …”

“You should stay with us for the night,” I suggested. “Faura’ll probably have forgotten all about it come morning.”

“B-but he’ll be pissed off if I don’t return.”

“We’ll tell him we kept you around to help us with some work, if he asks.”

“Y-yeah. Yeah, I can do that. Whatever it is. Just tell me…”

“She wants to lie for you, stupid,” said Hawk, but she was smiling. “We don’t actually have any work for you to do.”

“R-really?” Fitz looked first surprised, then suspicious. “Why?”

Because he looked like he could really use some rest? Because I didn’t want Faura to beat him even blacker and bluer than he already was? Because my daughter, all denial aside, quite obviously liked him? Because it was the fucking right thing to do? Like he’d believe any of it.

“Because I said so, that’s why. Don’t argue.”

\-------------------------------------------------------

Our people had made a campfire in the middle of the square. A bunch of people were sitting around it, warming themselves. I could make out El, sitting tall and proud, legs crossed, ready to tell a story. Sparrow and Tams were there, sitting arm in arm, and so were all our other kids - and a couple more I had never seen before. I stepped into the circle.

“Aren’t you guys supposed to be home with your parents?” I asked.

“Nah! They don’t mind us staying out longer! It’s safe right now. Not like we can go anywhere what with the wall,” answered a girl of Sparrow’s age.

“But didn’t you say…” piped up Tams, but was stopped by Sparrow’s hand over her mouth: “Sh, they said it’s a secret.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Nothing,” answered Sparrow and Tams in unison.

“It had better be nothing!”

Sparrow quickly changed the topic by addressing his sister, as though their fight had never happened: “Sit down. El’s about to tell a story.”

“If it’s another stupid rom-com, I’m not interested.”

“It’s not!”

“What’s a rom-com anyway?” asked one of the Gilead boys.

“It’s a love story! Duh!” answered Tams.

“Why don’t you just call it a love story then?” asked a girl, this one in her early teens. “Why d’you have to invent some stupid word nobody understands.” 

All our children glared at her. They loved El to bits.

“If you’re going to be a rude little shit, you can just fuck off, you know,” said Sparrow. I would have told him off, but I happened to think he was right. “El calls it that because that’s what they used to call it before the Fall. He’s really old and knows all about all of that and you’re just being stupid.”

El sat there, smiling, but made no comment. I knew that Sparrow wasn’t quite right. They had only called moving picture love stories “rom-coms”. I’d never seen one of them myself and found them hard to imagine, but El, older even than Soul’s mother, who had died peacefully of old age just a year ago, sure had. 

He had been a child during the Fall and his mother had been an actress with money flowing out of her every orifice. When life had taken a turn for the worse, El and his mother had withdrawn to a bunker. And there they had sat, just the two of them, day in, day out, watching the mother’s old friends and colleagues on screen. Eventually, his mother had stopped eating, even though there was still plenty of food in the bunker. El had watched her slowly wither away until she was nothing but a mummified corpse, still sitting in front of the huge screen. Then the food had run out. El had lasted a few weeks, then the poor little kid had crawled out of the bunker to find help, his body emaciated, his mind full of half-remembered movies melding together to form the stories he now told our children. Of course, none of the kids knew that. They just knew El was a good storyteller.

“So are you going to listen or are you going to be an ass?” Tams asked the older girl.

She seemed to ponder the question for a moment, but then decided to pull her knees close to her body, cross her arms and fall silent.

Sparrow turned to Hawk: “And what about you?”

“It’s not a rom-com,” said El, smiling. “It’s the story of a little girl who travels to a strange world where she meets many strange creatures.”

“Does she meet a guy?”

“Well, yes, but …”

“Then I’m not interested.”

“I promise it won’t be romantic.”

“I’ll hold you to that, El.” Hawk sat down. Then got back up again to pull Fitz down next to her: “Don’t just stand there like a jackass. People are waiting.”

“See! I told you! They’re totally bickering like…”

“Sparrow, I swear, if you don’t shut up, I will grab you by the ears and throw you down the town well.”

Sparrow fell silent. 

\-------------------------------------------------------

I, too, ended up staying to listen to El’s story for a while. Eventually, Soul approached and waved me over. We ended up hiding under one of the wagons, with a blanket draped over us, so not even our own people could see what we were getting up to. I told him all about Faura and Fitz and he told me about his day exploring Gilead and about how people were falling all over themselves wanting to try some of our goat milk. We fell silent when we heard the voices of Hawk and Fitz.

“... never tried to get out?”

“No. No, I couldn’t. Couldn’t get out of Gilead anyway, but even if I could, what would I do?”

“So you don’t have anyone left outside of Gilead?”

Fitz must have shaken his head, because Hawk said: “Then you’d have to make your way on your own. Maybe you’d find somewhere better.”

“Yeah, right.”

“It’s not a high bar!”

“Who’d take me in? I’m useless.”

“Bullshit.”

“No, you just don’t get it. You have your whole family to look out for you. That’s different. Having someone who loves you and looks out for you. That’s different.”

“You’d be surprised.” And I listened as Hawk told him about how she’d only joined our people so very few years ago, how she had grown up as no less of a slave than Fitz was now.  
Fitz told her how he’d been sold by his own parents as a little kid and how he had ended up here in Gilead. 

Their stories were equally horrifying but even though their words, Hawk’s especially, felt like acid on my skin, I could not stop listening. I was too surprised. I hadn’t expected the timid kid to be quite this open and Hawk talked more that night than she had the entire past year. Maybe they both just needed someone who’d been through the same tragedies. Someone who understood.

Eventually I ended up falling asleep with my arms and legs draped over Soul’s warm body, still listening to my daughter’s soft voice above me. 

I woke up to shouts and shots echoing in the distance. Soul was gone and the space next to me was empty. I scrambled out from under the wagon and grabbed a rifle on the way. The others were already standing around the wagons, some of them armed, but many still wiping the sleep from their eyes. 

Hawk was standing next to Fitz, her walking stick in one hand, her knife in the other. Had they spent the whole night together? Fitz seemed as nervous as ever, but Hawk’s eyes, too, were darting back and forth like a rabbit’s on an open plain. I went to join her.

“They’re attacking,” said Hawk, briefly. 

I swallowed down the urge to reply ‘You think?’ and instead said: “They’re not getting past the walls.” I put a hand on Hawk’s shoulder but she shrugged me off. Something was very wrong. Something beyond the raiders outside trying in vain to force their way through the gate. I gave her a quizzical look. She turned away.

“There’s no need to worry,” said Fitz, though his shaking voice belied his words. “We’ve handled raiders before. We close the gates. Nobody can get past.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked Hawk. 

“It’s probably nothing.”

She was lying. “You just let me decide whether it’s nothing.”

“I just…”

“What?”

“I haven’t seen Sparrow or Tams anywhere since we woke up.”

“Huh?”

“Sparrow tried to snuggle up to us yesterday and I told him to fuck off and now they’re not anywhere.”

“They’re probably exploring. You know what they’re like!” I tried to calm her. “They can’t go anywhere past the walls.”

“But I’ve been up for a while, calling and looking for them! Gilead isn’t that big!”

“Maybe they’re hiding on purpose, you know what Sparrow’s like, or … what? WHAT?”

Fitz’s eyes had gone wide with shock and a sudden understanding of the situation that I clearly lacked. Hawk, too, had noticed. “What is it?”

“I-I-I …”

“What?”

“They…”

Hawk’s hand flew to Fitz’s collar: “TELL ME!” The kid crumpled, his hands flying to protect his head.

“HAWK!” I stepped between the two teenagers and pried Hawk’s hand away. She looked at me, her eyes wide with shock. At herself. At me. Who knew? Then she stared at Fitz, who was now cowering on the floor, a shivering bundle of fear and misery.

“Oh fuck. I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I … I don’t usually … damn, I’m sorry.”

“Fitz, if you know where they are, you have to tell us,” I said, trying not to sound threatening, but I could feel the panic well up in me, making it difficult to keep my voice soft. 

The idea of Sparrow, stupid little reckless Sparrow, alone somewhere without my protection, in the middle of a fucking raider attack was making it damn near impossible to think straight. 

If Fitz hadn’t looked quite so pathetic, I might have continued where I had just made Hawk stop. I took a deep breath. It shuddered into my lungs.

“We’re not going to hurt you, no matter what you tell us. I’m just scared for my kid, okay?”

Fitz looked up at me and gulped. Then he, too, took a deep breath and slowly, too slowly, stammered out an answer: “T-the h-hole … there’s a hole. In the gate. Barely anyone knows. It’s really tiny, even I can’t fit through anymore. But the little kids … it’s their favourite secret. They would’ve bragged about it. The kids here know better than to leave at night, but … your son and his friend … Maybe they…”

“Oh fuck,” Hawk and I gasped in unison. Next I knew we were both rushing to the gate, screaming Sparrow’s and Tams’ names. I barely even noticed that others were joining us but by the time we had reached the gate, Aida was to my left, Soul to my right and the rest of our people were following us.

To my great surprise, Faura was at the gate, actually commanding his troops in person. I had fully expected him to hole up in his mansion and let others do the fighting for him. Of course, he was in no danger whatsoever. It looked like the guards on the wall had everything well under control, firing volley after volley to hold off the approaching raiders who would, no doubt, give up sooner rather than later. This was exactly what we had been hoping for when we had entered Gilead, but for the small detail of Sparrow and Tams being fuck only knows where and possibly in the middle of the fucking firefight!

I tried to push my way forward, but before I had even reached Faura, I was stopped by armed guards: “We don’t need your help, everything is fine, go back to your camp.”

I knew something was wrong. The guard who had grabbed me by the arm to stop me was looking shifty. A second later I got the horrible confirmation.

“THEY’RE OUT THERE! THE RAIDERS HAVE THEM!”

Aida and a few others had shoved their way past Faura’s people to the gate. 

“STOP SHOOTING! NOW!” I yelled. 

“YOU’LL HIT THEM!” hollered Soul next to me. Tams’s father was in hysterics next to him, barely able to form coherent words, but still pleading to whoever would listen. Some of the guards on top of the wall turned around in confusion.

“KEEP SHOOTING! HOLD THEM OFF!” screamed Faura. “I’m not risking my neck for a couple of disobedient brats!”

I screamed: “YOU CAN NEGOTIATE WITH THEM! GODDAMN IT, FAURA! STOP SHOOTING!”

“KEEP SHOOTING! WE DON’T NEGOTIATE WITH RAIDERS!” screamed Faura.

It was chaos. People were trying to shove their way past Faura’s guards and suddenly, bullets were flying through the air above our own heads, too. My hand reached out for Hawk to pull her down, but she wasn’t standing next to me anymore. There was a sudden panicked shriek of: “STOP SHOOTING!” 

Only this time, it wasn’t one of us. It was Faura. 

I looked up. Faura was lying on the ground, blood trickling down his face and on top of him, holding a gun to his temple, was Hawk. Blood was soaking through one of her sleeves, but she barely seemed to notice it at all.

To this day I don’t know how she got past all of the guards and managed to clobber Faura over the head with her cane while bleeding like a stuck pig. But she had gotten what she came for: The guards on the wall had stopped shooting. There weren’t any shots at all. Aida’s unnecessary request carried perfectly through the silence: “DON’T HURT THEM! WE’LL NEGOTIATE! STOP SHOOTING!”

Soul was immediately by Hawk’s side, dragging Faura, none too gently, to his feet. The glorious leader of Gilead was sobbing like a baby, trying to drag his feet, begging. 

“Fucking coward,” spat Hawk. “I barely even hurt you and you’re bawling like a baby.” 

Hawk was wrong. Faura wasn’t crying in pain. He was terrified. And I was confused. We had only threatened him to get his people to stop shooting at our kids. And they had. He wasn’t even in any immediate danger. It made no sense whatsoever, unless…

And then it hit me, at the very same moment that Fitz, who was cowering a few steps behind me, poked his head up, stared through the gate at the raiders and said: “Oh God. I know them.” Faura was scared for his life, because these people weren’t just a bunch of random raiders targeting the only prosperous settlement within weeks of travel. They were here specifically because this was Gilead. They were here for Faura.

My hunch was confirmed when I helped Soul and Hawk - who refused to let go of Faura despite the thin trail of blood she was leaving on the ground behind her - push the sobbing man to the gate, so the raiders could see him. A roar of recognition and anger went through their ranks. 

The shaven-headed woman right up front, who was holding Tams, stepped forward ever so slightly. I couldn’t see Sparrow anywhere but Tams was unhurt. She even smiled through her tears when she saw us. 

“Yeah, that’s them alright,” muttered Fitz. 

“Who?” asked Hawk.

“That lady in the front, that’s Glave. She was Dith’s right-hand woman before Faura killed him. Fuck, I didn’t even know she made it out. I thought she was dead, too.”

“WHO ARE YOU?” screamed Glave.

“THE FAMILY OF THOSE KIDS YOU’VE GOT THERE!” Aida screamed. “AND WE FUCKING WANT THEM BACK!”

“GILEAD’S OURS!” Glave responded.

“I DON’T GIVE A SHIT!” screamed Aida. I heard Tams squeak as Glave’s grip tightened on her arm. I’d shoved Aida aside before she could even complain.

“GILEAD’S NONE OF OUR CONCERN!” I screamed with enough force that my throat felt like I had rubbed it right up against Gilead’s walls. “WE HAVE NO STAKE IN THIS BUT OUR CHILDREN! FAURA IS A STRANGER TO US!”

Faura stared at me with eyes wide open and whispered: “I … I thought …”

“OPEN THE GATE!” screamed Glave.

“Open the gate,” ordered Aida. 

“No. Nonononono.”

The guards were on Faura’s side, but our people were quick on the uptake. The very moment they had lowered their guns, every single gun in our possession, a couple of crossbows - and one tiny slingshot courtesy of one of the kids - were pointed at them. They were caught between us and Glave’s people. They had no choice. Despite Faura’s desperate pleading, the gate was opened. 

We shoved Faura ahead of us, though with some difficulty. He could barely walk straight now and kept turning around to plead with me or claw at Soul’s shirt. He didn’t even try Hawk. Judging by her icy glare, he wouldn’t have stood a chance.

“Mom!”  
My knees very nearly went as weak as Faura’s when I heard Sparrow’s voice. He was alive! Unhurt enough to call for me! A second later I saw his curly hair peek out from behind the legs of one of Glave’s men.

“Put down your guns!” commanded Glave. 

“Let our kids go and we will!” 

“Give us Faura then!”

“You can have him as soon as we have our kids back, alive and unharmed!”

Glave looked me up and down, clearly trying to figure out whether she could trust me.

“We have no interest in the fate of Gilead,” I repeated. 

She grabbed a hold of Sparrow and walked a few steps toward us until she was practically face to face with me. I could hear some muttering behind me and was sure that some of our people’s guns were now aimed straight at her head. She didn’t seem particularly bothered. Apparently she trusted me about as much as I trusted her: Just barely enough not to fuck up this simple prisoner exchange.

“On three then?” she asked.

I nodded.

\-------------------------------------------------------

After that, everything went very fast. We shoved Faura into the crowd of waiting raiders. Tams and Sparrow ran toward us. Tams was crying, Sparrow was screaming. As I hugged Sparrow to my chest, sobbing at him to never ever do anything like that again, a shot rang out. I thought I heard Faura’s death gurgle but I must have imagined that, because everything was way too loud. Then the raiders started pouring past us into the open gates of Gilead. 

A few hours later it was all over. We were standing in the town square by the fire fuelled by the body of Faura and the handful of people who had actually been loyal enough to him to attempt to fight Glave. They’d been vastly outnumbered because most of Gilead’s inhabitants seemed to give as little of a shit as we did who ran their city. Judging by the to-do Glave was making about burning the bodies and threatening anyone who opposed her with the same fate, she clearly did not realise that.

The bonfire had been set up just where our wagons had been, so we were front and centre at the show. Sparrow was sleeping in my arms. The whole ordeal must have drained even his usually endless energy. He was starting to get heavy - my own arms were tired, too. But right now I couldn’t bear the thought of him not being right where he was. Even Soul wasn’t allowed to hold him now. Maybe in a few hours.

Fitz was sitting by Hawk, tending to her arm. It turned out he was pretty good at patching up wounds. A useful skill to have! Fortunately, the bullet had only grazed her. She’d hardly even flinched when Fitz had cleaned off the blood. Now she was staring at the fire, intently, barely even blinking, with a little smile on her lips that I absolutely did not like. I would have to talk to her when we had a little more privacy. I’d have to remind her that Faura hadn’t been Hunter.

Fitz was mumbling something in Hawk’s ear. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop but apparently anxiety had taken Fitz’s ability to use his inside voice. It was impossible not to listen.

“So…”

“Yeah?”

“I just wanted to say thank you.”

“What for?”

“Knocking out Faura.”

It sounded like Fitz had practiced these lines for a while. I considered leaving, but I couldn’t get up without disturbing Sparrow. And Sparrow badly needed his rest, because Soul and I were going to have a very long and very serious talk with him once he woke up.

“Eh, not a big deal.”

“It … it … it really is.” It seemed he had reached the end of his plan. “I-it’s ‘cause of you that he’s dead.”

“Yeah, and he deserved it.”

Fitz kept staring at Hawk open-mouthed with a look in his eyes like he had never seen anything quite like her before. 

“So … so … you’re … erm … leaving then?”

“Yeah,” said Hawk, still staring into the fire and completely unaware that this kid sitting next to her obviously thought she was a miracle poured into the shape of a girl. I had the sudden urge to walk over there and slap my oblivious daughter on the back of the head. 

“So what’s up with you then?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“You still planning on staying?”

“I … kind of have to. Glave took all of Faura’s other stuff. I think I belong to her now.”

“Oh,” said Hawk, turning to Fitz and looking at him properly for the first time since he had sat down. “Think you’ll be okay?”

“I guess. She can’t be as bad as Faura, can she?”

I saw the look on Fitz’s face and realised what was about to happen a split second before it did. I quickly turned away - this wasn’t something I was supposed to be watching. 

Unfortunately the jerky movement had woken up Sparrow. He rubbed his eyes, stared for a moment, then loudly announced to everyone within earshot: “They’re kissing! Mom! They’re kissing!”

“I know. Shut up, sweetheart.”

“But they’re kissing! I knew it! It’s like in El’s rom-coms. I told you so!”

Hawk’s head whipped around: “Oh shut up! We’re not in a rom-com. People in rom-coms don’t have their first kiss by the fire.” 

“Yeah. They do. Like in that one story where …”

Hawk interrupted him: “Well, normally the fire isn’t made of burning bodies.”

“Who cares? You were kissing.” Sparrow fought his way out of my arms, just so he could jump around his sister and a now beet-red Fitz singing: “Kissing! Kissing! KISSING! You’re in love!”

“Shut up, dickwad! It was just a fucking kiss, not a marriage proposal.”

“You’re meant for each other! Like in El’s stories!”

“Fitz isn’t even coming with us!” shouted Hawk, jumped up, roughly pushed Sparrow out of the way and disappeared among the Gileadean crowd, leaving behind Fitz, who looked like somebody had just slapped him. Or rather, like he was suddenly an entirely different person who had also just been slapped: Mouth open with shock, eyes slowly filling with tears of indignation. Within a split second he was back to his own slapped self, cowering next to the fire, head held low.

“I’m sorry,” said Sparrow, looking completely crushed. “I was just saying … I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

“Go tell your sister and Fitz then,” I said. “Go on.” I shooed him softly in Fitz’s direction, but my mind was racing too much to listen to what he said to the boy.

\-------------------------------------------------------

By the next morning I had made a decision, I had discussed it first with Soul and then with Aida and they had both agreed. I would have asked Hawk, too, but not only had she turned back into her usual taciturn self, she had also decided she did not even want to listen to anyone and found a different place to be busy every time Soul, Sparrow or I tried to approach her. 

While the rest of my people were packing up, I found myself waiting for Glave in the oversized house that was still stuffed full of Faura’s kitsch. When she finally entered the front room, she made a big show of wiping her shoes on the carpet and tossing her grubby coat over a gold-painted statuette in the corner.

“What do you want?” she asked, gruffly.

“I want to propose a trade.”

“Your leader’s already handled all that,” she said. “We still want the same stuff Faura did. ‘Cept for the creepy angel, you can keep that shit.”

Well, Glave certainly seemed a lot more prone to being straight-forward than Faura had been, so I followed her lead: “I want Fitz.”

“Fitz?”

“The kid Faura’s been keeping around as a slave.”

“Oh,” she said. Then again, “Oooh” in a tone of sudden understanding. “Want to get your daughter a boy-toy, huh?” She smirked. “What ya gonna pay me for him?”

I only barely held back a noise of disgust. 

“Doesn’t matter what I want him for, does it? I’ll give you a goat for him.”

Glave eyed me thoughtfully, then after a moment said. “Two.”

“No, one. A healthy goat’s more useful than a sickly slave. You don’t look like the type who likes to be waited on and that’s all he does. He’ll be a waste of food.”

“Then why do you want him so badly?”

“Reasons that are none of your business.”

She smirked again, but this time the smirk was not directed at me, but over my shoulder. I turned around. Fitz had been cowering in a doorway, listening to the entire conversation. That hadn’t exactly been part of my plan, but oh well … I could worry about gaining his trust when I’d gotten him past the gates of Gilead.

“It’s a good price,” I said. “A good goat for…” I gestured at Fitz, who helpfully proved my point by flinching hard and stumbling backwards over the threshold of the door. 

Glave sneered at me, then at Fitz, seemed to consider her position for a moment and then went: “Alright!”

The grin she gave me while we were shaking hands clearly showed me that she thought she’d made a bargain. 

I returned as soon as I could, goat in tow, to drag Fitz out of what was now Glave’s house. 

Everyone else was ready to get the fuck out of Gilead by the time we were back, so I shoved Fitz into our wagon rather roughly. Hawk was sitting there, looking out over the town square, clearly brooding. She looked up when we arrived. Her mouth fell open in surprise for a split second, but she quickly regained control over her expression and gave me a look I could, oddly enough, not quite place. 

\-------------------------------------------------------

We’d been moving for long enough that Gilead had become a blur in the distance, when Hawk, without warning or explanation, took her cane and climbed out of the wagon.

“Hawk!” I shouted after her, but she did not answer.

“What’s up with her?” asked Sparrow.

“Fucked if I know,” I muttered. “She’ll be at the back with the goats. I’ll go after her.” I sighed.

“I can go talk to her if you want,” said Soul, “you just take the reins.”

“You sure? She won’t listen to you.”

“She won’t listen to you, either. You handle the wagon and,” Soul’s eyes darted to Fitz so briefly that Fitz himself and Sparrow must both have missed it, “I’ll be right back.”

He wasn’t wrong. I’d barely exchanged two words with Fitz since I’d taken him with us. Too busy wondering whether I’d made the right choice. How was I even going to explain myself to the boy. Yes, I’d taken him to save him from Glave, who was a creepy fucker, and from whoever would inevitably come after her. But I’d also taken him because I thought he’d be good for Hawk, though now it looked like Hawk disagreed. And then there was the small matter of basically having called him a waste of space. And I’d have to do all that with Sparrow still in the wagon, ‘cause he sure as hell wasn’t going to budge if he knew something interesting was going on. Great. Just great.

Fortunately Fitz, desperation thick in his voice, kicked off the conversation himself: “C-can I ask something…”

“Ask away.”

“Did you really buy me as Hawk’s …”, he blushed to the tips of his dirty blond hair, looked around at Sparrow, who was staring at him intently, then lowered his voice and muttered, “a gift for Hawk.”

“Neither of you seemed opposed to the idea yesterday,” I quipped.

The kid gasped, his eyes widening, then he quickly dropped his head: “Oh. Okay.”

I could have kicked myself, diplomatic genius that I was! Someone should’ve invited Aida to this, it would have cured her of her hero worship once and for all.

“Don’t, Fitz, I’m just being an ass.”

Fitz slowly raised his eyes, as Sparrow sniggered: “She’s being an ass.”

“I’m sure he heard it the first time, sweetheart.” I said and gave Sparrow a soft slap on the back of the head. “Shush or go bother someone else.”

To my surprise, Sparrow opted to shush. 

“Listen, Fitz, you’re one of us now. You’ll have to do your part to keep us all alive, but we won’t force you to do anything else you don’t want to do, alright?”

Fitz looked highly skeptical: “One of …”

“Yeah, one of us. We’ll figure out everything else as we go, alright?”

“I guess,” mumbled Fitz.

I looked at the bruised, skinny kid, who seemed so much more fragile than Hawk had been when I’d rescued her. He didn’t believe a word I’d said. He’d be fine, though. Both of them would be. In time. Hopefully.


End file.
